Hooliganism, the dictator’s catch all crime

21 Nov 13 | Azerbaijan News, News and features

News that UK journalist Kieron Bryan was granted bail by a Russian court was greeted with relief yesterday.

Bryan faces a charge of ‘hooliganism’ after he was arrested while filming a Greenpeace protest on an Arctic Ocean oil rig.

Hooliganism is defined in article 213 of the Russian criminal code as “a gross violation of the public order which expresses patent contempt for society, attended by violence against private persons or by the threat of its use, and likewise by the destruction or damage of other people’s property”

Bryon could end up with a two-year sentence should he be convicted. That’s what Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alekhina and Ekaterina Samutsevic of Pussy Riot received after they were convicted of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred” in October 2012. Samutsevic has been released on bail, but Alekhina and Tolokonnikova remain in prison. There were fears for the wellbeing of Tolokonnikova recently after authorities could not confirm her whereabouts in the course of a prison transfer.

Feminist punk group Pussy Riot members, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova (left), Maria Alekhina (centre) and Ekaterina Samutsevich (right) sit in a glass cage at a court room in Moscow. Maria Pleshkova | Demotix

In the past week, artist Pyotry Pavlensky was charged with hooliganism for nailing his scrotum to Red Square, in what he said was a protest against political apathy.

Azerbaijan meanwhile, defines it as “deliberate actions roughly breaking a social order, expressing obvious disrespect for a society, accompanying with application of violence on citizens or threat of its application, as well as destruction or damage of another’s property…”

In May of this year, Azerbaijani activist Ilkin Rustamzadeh was sentenced to two months pre-trial detention for a hooliganism charge after he allegedly took part in a “Harlem Shake” video. Rustamzadeh, who had been active in calling for investigations into the deaths of young soldiers in Azerbaijan’s army, denied ever having taken part in the videos.

Before that, in 2009, Azerbaijan had jailed two young activists for hooliganism after they posted a video on YouTube satirising the government’s expenditure on importing donkeys from Germany.

It was suggested that the donkey import was a cover for money laundering. Shortly after the video was posted, the activists, Emin Milli and Adnan Hadjizadeh, were attacked in a Baku cafe. They were blamed for the fight and sentenced two and a half years and two years respectively.

In Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko’s regime frequently uses hooliganism charges to harass journalists and activists. Lukashenko is so paranoid about dissent that he at one point banned clapping in public, so its unsurprising that moderators of online anti-government groups get arrested. In August 2012, Pavel Yeutsikheieu and Andrei Tkachou, administrators of the “We are fed up with Lukashenko” group on Russian social network VKontakte, were both given short prison sentences for “minor hooliganism”.

vk-lukashenko

In the old Soviet Union, inconvenient people were often declared mad and locked up by the authorities. Now, they’re classified as hooligans.

Putin’s cold calculation on Arctic drilling

09 Oct 13 | News and features, Russia

Press briefing after the talks between Putin and Merkel - BerlinThe Arctic Sunrise scandal began on 18 September, when Greenpeace activists reached Russia’s state gas giant Gazprom oil rig Prirazlomnaya. The Arctic Sunrise crew consisted of 28 activists from 18 different countries, including New Zealand, Australia, United Kingdom, Russia, France, Italy, Canada and Argentina, and two journalists – Russian photographer Denis Sinyakov and British videographer Kieron Bryan. Captain Peter Willcox was skipper of Greenpeace’s legendary “Rainbow Warrior” – a ship on which Greenpeace activists protested against testing nuclear weapons in late 1980s.

The activists lowered dinghies trying to disembark to the oil rig to hang out a banner, criticising petroleum production in the Arctic, but were seized by Russian frontier guards, “Arctic Sunrise” towed to Murmansk and its crew members arrested.

All thirty Greenpeace activists from “Arctic Sunrise” ship have face charges of piracy in Russian city of Murmansk – a criminal article which stipulates up to 15 years in jail.

The activists deny the charges and have been refusing to give evidence since their very arrest.

Vladimir Putin commented:

“I do not know the details of what happened, but they are definitely not pirates. But formally they tried to siege the rig, and our law enforcement authorities, our frontier guards  didn’t know, who was trying to seize this rig under the name of Greenpeace – in the context of events in Kenya this could be anything,”

One could not perceive Russian president’s words unambiguously. On the one hand, he made it clear Greenpeace activists were not pirates, and his words have always been an indirect order for Russian courts. On the other hand, he did actually compare Greenpeace with terrorists.

Gennady Lyubin , executive director of Gazprom Schelf Neft – the owner of Prirazlomnaya –insists that Greenpeace members’ actions could have led to “unpredictable and even tragical consequences” and says that Prirazlomnaya is absolutely safe.

Russian journalists have stood up for their colleague Denis Sinyakov and his colleagues from Greenpeace.

They held pickets near Russian Investigative Committee headquarters in Moscow. Leading online media illustrated their articles with black squares instead of photographs.

Greenpeace, famous for its remarkable, yet always peaceful protests against threats to nature, have noted that “Arctic Sunrise” crew didn’t do any harm to anyone, nor did it try to take possessions.

What was happening should have been quite obvious for Russian authorities, including Vladimir Putin; it’s not the first time Greenpeace has protested against Gazprom’s petroleum production in the Arctic.

Early in September 20 Greenpeace activists wearing polar bear costumes blocked the entrance of Gazprom’s headquarters in Moscow. In late August six mountain climbers, including Greenpeace executive director Kumi Naidoo, climbed onto the Prirazlomnaya and managed to stay on its sheer wall for 15 hours. The activists said the rig’s workers poured cold water on them and threw metal objects at them.

That time they managed to avoid criminal prosecution.

Greenpeace activists also disrupted a football game between Swiss club Bazel and Gazprom-sponsored Schalke-04 for about five minutes by unfurling a gigantic banner saying “Gazprom. Don’t foul the Arctic”.

The Greenpeace Save the Arctic campaign was launched in June 2013. According to the the petition against offshore drilling in the has already been signed by almost four million people.

Has “Arctic Sunrise” crew manage to bring more world’s attention to the issue?

It seems Vladimir Putin and his team – intentionally or not – managed to change the subject from the threatened Arctic ecology to Russia’s repressive attitude towards any kinds of civil activism. The paradox is that Greenpeace has became a part of this focus shifting, now having to raise the alarm more as human rights advocates than ecologists.

However, the important question is whether such focus shifting is accidental.

Vladimir Putin is used to his reputation  as someone who doesn’t exactly stick to the letter of the European Convention on Human Rights. But never has he shown the signs of being ready to give up any of his and his fellow oligarchs’ commercial interests. The Arctic Sunrise case is another example.

This article was originally published on 9 Oct 2013 at indexoncensorship.org